They’ve just added I’m Tired of Puppy Mills with a new very cool charity partner, Last Chance for Animals, and they’ll be adding a lot more causes shortly. They also have new products, brand new I’m Tired of Animal Cruelty dog tags and key chains.

Are you, like me, tired of reading horrific animal abuse stories? Fed up with the lax laws and lack of legislation to punish offenders? Do you ever feel that as one person you can’t make a difference? Good news, you can, and it’s easier than you think. When you buy one of their products half of it goes to charity, you can’t beat that.

“Each of us has the power to make a positive change in the lives of animals in need. But, when we join together, our impact skyrockets.”

— Dan Hoffman, ITo Co-founder

Dan Hoffman and Carrie Pollare have created a wonderful company that has the opportunity to make a tremendous difference for so many causes. As an interesting aside, this brother and sister team didn’t start this company to make money, they already had a multi-million dollar computer related business. “I’m Tired Of… ” was started as a completely altruistic endeavor, they wanted to make a difference.

Since working on the blog I have personally dealt with Carrie on a number of occasions, she’s a wonderful person and the money donated from  her business is making a huge difference in the lives of so many animals.  Please support her by buying “I’m Tired Of..” products and letting other animal owners know about the company.

On a sadder note, Carrie just lost her beloved dog Noah to cancer.  He put up a brave fight but it was finally time to say goodbye, never an easy thing to do. On behalf of the entire Dogster community I want to let her know that her family is in our thoughts.

We’re doing something a little different on the blog today. I was approached by a wonderful artist, Terry Stanley, to have a contest that would benefit dog charities. In return she would offer up two custom portraits, a large and small,  for the lucky winners.

First, here’s a little info about Terry….

Terry’s Bio:
I am one of the millions of “self-taught” artists in the world today, but am very blessed that my art has brought me notice and opportunity I could never have imagined. I’ve attained Signature Status in the Pastel Society of America . I’m a member of and Wisconsin Ambassador for the Portrait Society of America . I teach workshops in Wisconsin and beyond and am so very fortunate to have met and become friends with some truly wonderful artists from throughout the country. I often wonder how all this happened!

Not only is Terry very talented and rather well-known she is big time into helping out dog charities. Each month she actively supports a non-profit organization that helps dogs – service dogs… rescue dogs… the humane society… – by designing products featuring the organization’s mission. The royalties from these products are automatically donated to the non-profit, so you can pick up some fun gifts and know you are helping a dog at the same time. How can you not love that?

One other great thing, Terry offers custom dog portraits starting at $35 for a 5×7, which makes it affordable for most. The picture on top is of our boy Bo, it was around x-mas which is why he had the green ribbon around his neck. You can see from the photo on the left, which the painting was done from, that Terry did a terrific job capturing Bo’s personality on canvas.

Check out Terry’s Dog Days Of Painting blog and read some of the stories about the dogs she’s painted. Her portraits make a great gift for yourself or the dog lover in your life.

As for the contest, we are offering up a 11×14 painting ($125 value) of a single dog (or that much credit if you want to “upgrade” to more than one dog in the painting) for 1st place and a 2nd place/runner-up 5×7 ($35 value).

To enter, and we’re going on the honor system, all you need to do is donate to your favorite dog charity-rescue, humane society, sanctuary- doesn’t matter it just needs to be dog related. Don’t worry about the amount, that’s not what it’s about, every dollar helps. If you don’t have any extra money to donate that’s alright too, you can still enter by donating a bag a food or maybe some towels or something else on an animal rescues wish list. If you can’t do that, again it’s alright,  you can still enter by donating a few hours of your time.

I have put up plenty of options so there is no excuse for not being able to enter this contest, you’ll be benefiting a great cause and at the same time getting a chance to win a custom portrait of your dog. I think it’s a pretty fair trade-off. If you donated or worked on a fundraiser in the last month, or already volunteer your time or work in dog rescue that counts, just leave the info in the comment section.

The contest runs today through Tuesday, August 4th when I will randomly choose the winners. To enter leave a comment in the comment section sharing what charity you chose to help and why. You don’t need to put a dollar amount you can just say donated funds,  no amount is too small in these desperate times.

Good luck!

A short but nice story on a football player who’s making a difference.

CAMBRIDGE SPRINGS, Pa. – Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is helping a northwestern Pennsylvania police department fight crime.

The Cambridge Springs police department used $8,000 from the Ben Roethlisberger Foundation to care for and equip a new 2-year-old German shepherd. The department paid $11,000 for the dog, which was raised in a community fundraiser.

Roethlisberger’s foundation provides funding to train, equip and purchase police dogs. The foundation has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for service dogs used by police and fire departments in Pennsylvania, Roethlisberger’s home state of Ohio and elsewhere.

We give Ben Roethlisberger four paws up!

* I think Leroy is a fan of football

Leona Helmsley’s trustees were questioning her sanity when she revised her will in 2004. Requesting a judge to review the revisions leaving $12 million dollars to care for her dogs, while cutting out her two of her grandchildren.

A 2004 revision to the mission statement of the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust ordered that the money should be used for “purposes related to the provision of care for dogs” as well as other charities.

Prior to the will being changed the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust had included money for such causes as health care for the poor, with an emphasis on children.

The Helmsley trustees, who include her brother and two of her four grandchildren, had sought the ruling from Manhattan Surrogate Court Justice Troy Webber after reports that the funds would be applied only to dog-related charities.

In a decision made public Wednesday, a Manhattan judge ruled that the trustees of the Queen of Mean’s estate can spread her estimated $5 billion fortune among charities that benefit more than just man’s best friend.

When Trouble, Helmsley’s Maltese, passes the remaining money will go back to the charitable fund. In the meantime, the dog’s yearly expenses run about $300,000. About $210,000 go to around-the-clock protection.

Okay, leaving $12 million to your dogs may be a bit excessive, but can you imagine all the good the leftover money could have done to help out dog charities.  If someone chooses to leave money to their dogs, rather than their grandchildren, does that make them insane?  Maybe she received unconditional love from her dogs.

While Leona Helmsley may have been rather eccentric, I think the one sane decision she made was to leave her money to help out dog charities.

* Pic courtesy Graylock/AP

I want to give a little shout out to one of our readers, Elizabeth.  She has a blog, Animal Scraps, and I wanted to share it with everyone. The reason I want to let everyone know about it is because people like Elizabeth deserve some recognition.

Now that I have your attention, I’m sure you want to know what it is she does.  Elizabeth takes donated scraps of paper and makes very nice cards, selling a five pack for $25. All of the proceeds go towards animal shelters.

For The Love Of Animals

I am lucky enough to have friends that give me their scraps. They think I am doing them a favor by taking them. I think they are doing ME a favor by GIVING me beautiful pieces of design paper, ribbons, stickers, etc.

I have made cards with these free goodies for almost two years now. I don’t feel right selling the cards made from donated scraps, so I had this idea. To start a blog called Animal Scraps. With a donation of $25 a set of 5 hand crafted cards and envelopes will be mailed to the address you specify.

All donations collected by me will be sent to various animal shelters. Blog readers are encouraged to suggest various animal shelters they live near or support, which means the donations will be spread around the United States.

Elizabeth does all this while working full time, and designing jewelry.  She even covers the cost of postage and envelopes, it doesn’t get much more generous than that.

I do know she could use some tape for her ATG gun and pop dots.  I confess, I have no idea what either are, but if anyone has  extra tape or pop dots to donate I know it would be going for a very good cause.

If you’re interested in finding out what cards are available for purchase stop by Animal Scraps for all the details.

Elizabeth, we give you five out of five paws.